MEDFORD, Ore. — Friends and family are in town, food is being made and the Medford Fire Department wants you to remember some cooking safety tips to avoid a dinner disaster.

The most common cause of house fires during thanksgiving is leaving cooking food unattended.

To prevent fires from happening in your home, keep your cooking areas clean and make sure flammable things such as oven mitts stay away from heat.

“We like the phrase of ‘stand by your pan’, stay where you are, where you’re cooking. If you have to leave maybe set a timer, bring food with you instead of setting it in the kitchen and walking away,” said deputy fire marshal, Samantha Metheny.

Medford Fire Department also wants to remind you to check your smoke alarms and make sure the batteries are working.

NBC5 News reporter Mariah Mills is a Medford native. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor’s Degree in journalism. She also minored in sociology.

In school, she covered Oregon athletics for the student-run television station, Duck TV. When she’s not reporting, she’s reading, hiking and rooting for her favorite teams, the Seattle Seahawks and the Oregon Ducks.